Exploring the optimum number of receivers per station in WDM networks

The fundamental issue of the optimal exploitation of the available bandwidth in optical high-speed networks is studied in this paper. Especially, a WDM LAN of passive star topology is introduced that uses a set of separate parallel control channels and an effective access algorithm with pre-transmission coordination scheme is proposed. The packets rejection events at destination are examined and the significant deterioration of their effect on the system performance is managed. For this reason, the increase of the number of optical receivers per station to an optimum value is analytically studied in order for a required level of throughput improvement to be achieved. Based on Poisson statistics, the performance measures of throughput and rejection probability as a function of the number of receivers per station are mathematically derived, while their variation for diverse numbers of stations, control and data channels is studied. Finally, the optimum value of the number of receivers per station is explored for different network configurations. The comparative study proves that the optimum number of receivers per station is limited and in all studied cases its increase by only one, from one to two optical receivers per station, is enough to essentially improve the system throughput and obtain a predefined performance level.